Preparation and investigation of optical properties and photocatalytic activity of SnO2/GO thin films

In this study, tin oxide-pure (SnO2) and tin oxide/Graphene Oxide (SnO2/GO) thin films with different concentrations of GO (0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 g/ml) were synthesized using spin coating method. The synthesized thin films were used to study the structural, morphological, chemical, optical, and photocatalytic degradation of Methyl Orange (MO) under UV light irradiation using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy, Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), Raman spectroscopy, and Ultraviolet- Visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy, respectively. The XRD results of GO showed that the peak was very sharp with high intensity, which was indicative of the quite good crystallinity of the GO structure. The band gap value of SnO2/GO thin films increased followed by increase in the GO concentration. Under UV light irradiation, the photocatalytic activity of the synthesized samples was measured using MO dye. The obtained results also indicated that adding GO concentration would increase the photocatalytic activity of the SnO2 thin film. © 2021 Sharif University of Technology. All rights reserved.